Vyacheslav Ivanov and C.M. Bowra: a ... - UCL Discovery

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important role in the development of their friendship than all the publications they exchanged. Although Bowra was in many ways a typical Oxford figure and is often cast as such, it is important to remember that he far exceeded the usual boundaries of the conventional academic role. He has been characterised as a ‘deeply romantic’ ‘poet manqué’, as an ‘open rebel’ and as a ‘a major liberating influence’. 27 As John Finley, a friend and fellow classicist from Harvard, put it in his tribute: ‘Though he became a fine flower of the English education and admired its niceties, he was not in imagination essentially formed, much less confined, by these.’ 28 We can see, therefore, that at the time of his first encounter with Ivanov, Bowra was already an extremely distinguished figure: an accomplished classical scholar and literary critic, with an impressive range of publications (twelve books by the age of forty-seven in 1945), an established authority on classical and modern poetry, recognized through his appointment to the Oxford Chair of Poetry in 1946, and a prominent and influential figure in academic life at Oxford University. In all these three areas of accomplishment he had a great deal to offer Ivanov. In terms of academic and literary interests, the two men had much in common. They had both been trained as classical scholars and shared a passion for ancient Greece, which they expressed in their scholarly work and translations of ancient Greek poetry. In some areas their work overlapped very closely; it is remarkable, for example, that their first publications in this field were translations of Pindar's odes (Ivanov's version of Pindar's first Pythian ode appeared in 1899, Bowra's Pythian Odes were published in 1928). We know from Bowra's letter to Ivanov of 19 September 1948, written on the eve of his departure for 27 Connolly, ‘Hedonist and Stoic’, Lloyd-Jones, ‘British Academy Memoir’, Berlin, ‘Memorial Address in St Mary’s’, 45-6, 35, 18, respectively. 28 John H. Finley Jr, ‘Maurice in America: I’, in Lloyd-Jones (ed.), Maurice Bowra: A Celebration, 113. 38
the United States, that he discussed Pindar with Ivanov during their second meeting in August 1948 and received welcome encouragement from him over his forthcoming Pindar studies. 29 They also both translated the poetry of Alcaeus; indeed, Bowra even possessed a copy of the rare 1914 edition of Ivanov's translations from Alcaeus and Sappho. 30 Their tastes in modern poetry overlapped in several areas. Bowra's fascination with Symbolism and its legacy naturally brought him closer to the sphere of Ivanov's interests. This is reflected in the contents of The Heritage of Symbolism, which includes chapters on three poets who had a great deal in common with Ivanov: Blok, Yeats, and Stefan George. Blok was Ivanov's close friend and fellow Symbolist, and Yeats shared Ivanov's fascination with the poetic uses of myth (this was presumably why Gumilev saw fit to describe Yeats as an ‘English Vyacheslav’ to Akhmatova before setting off to meet him in 1917). 31 Stefan George promoted a mystical, hieratic view of poetry not unlike Ivanov's brand of religious Symbolism; he was also regarded as ‘the Master’ by his devoted disciples, in the same way as Ivanov was cast in the role of ‘Uchitel'’ (Teacher) by his followers in Russia. Ivanov was an ardent admirer of George's verse and was frequently compared to him by his contemporaries and later readers, both Russian and German; the German poet Johannes Von Guenther, who attended the literary gatherings at the Tower and translated Ivanov’s verse into German, did much 29 See Chapter 5, letter 11. 30 Alkei i Safo: Sobranie pesen i liricheskikh otryvkov v perevode razmerami podlinnikov Vyach. Ivanova so vstupitel'nom ocherkom ego-zhe (M.: Izdanie M. i S. Sabashnikovykh, 1914). A copy of this book is held in Wadham College library, marked with a sticker ‘Ex libris Maurice Bowra’; it is listed B1942 from the list of roughly 2500 books owned by Bowra that were taken into the College library after his death in 1971. As Ivanov's correspondence with Bowra contains no mention of this book, and as it is unlikely that he would have had a spare copy to send to Bowra from Rome, we can assume that Bowra acquired the book through other channels. 31 N.S. Gumilev, Letter to A.A. Akhmatova of , in M.S. Lesman (ed.), Knigi i ruskopisi v sobranii M.S. Lesmana: Annotirovannyi katalog. Publikatsii (M.: Kniga, 1989), 370. 39
Page 1 and 2: BIRMINGHAM SLAVONIC MONOGRAPHS No.
Page 3 and 4: Дорогой друг мой, м
Page 5 and 6: Illustrations Photograph of V.I. Iv
Page 7 and 8: Transcription and Transliteration I
Page 9 and 10: INTRODUCTION Vyacheslav Ivanov (186
Page 11 and 12: classical tradition of humanism to
Page 13 and 14: tradition’. 1 Although Ivanov beg
Page 15 and 16: he overlooked them because of his h
Page 17 and 18: ‘zhiznetvorchestvo’ (creation o
Page 19 and 20: (Transparency, 1904), Eros (1907),
Page 21 and 22: humanism; as we shall see below, th
Page 23 and 24: his transformation of the Russian l
Page 25 and 26: The publication of these letters in
Page 27 and 28: edition then formed the basis of th
Page 29 and 30: Жил Диониса новый с
Page 31 and 32: CHAPTER TWO Bowra as a Classical Sc
Page 33 and 34: company of a Russian friend's siste
Page 35 and 36: who initiated him into the art of t
Page 37: made possible his election to the O
Page 41 and 42: intuitions, was able to recognize i
Page 43 and 44: Moscow during the war years. 2 The
Page 45 and 46: (tiny little corner): 'это то
Page 47 and 48: of the existing anthologies of Russ
Page 49 and 50: (unchanged) in 1947 and then follow
Page 51 and 52: Pindar or Alcaeus.’ 21 In his bri
Page 53 and 54: Уединенная душа. 26 A
Page 55 and 56: К закатным пристан
Page 57 and 58: succeeds in conveying the power and
Page 59 and 60: Dimitrii, who also omit all referen
Page 61 and 62: all a great personality in contact
Page 63 and 64: ight now it’s impossible to deter
Page 65 and 66: covering several pages; 16 distichs
Page 67 and 68: to the task of translation. A key t
Page 69 and 70: connection advanced by Ivanov and p
Page 71 and 72: you, poet, so much sympathy, compre
Page 73 and 74: mutans carmina in aes raucum’) in
Page 75 and 76: conventional morality. These aspect
Page 77 and 78: Bowra's interpretation and admired
Page 79 and 80: members of a common humanist tradit
Page 81 and 82: details of his meetings with Akhmat
Page 83 and 84: of Svet Vechernii back to Oxford, t
Page 85 and 86: he was clearly anxious to define in
Page 87 and 88: the way in which his generation of
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έστίν. 79 This Christian versi
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These are not just empty truisms. I
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Bowra were discovered in Wadham Col
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[To C. M. Bowra, Oxford high-priest
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prospere vigeant! 12 Iam ante quinq
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Dear Sir, 3 Ivanov - Bowra 1 Octobe
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Praestantissime poeta, 28 4 Bowra -
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5 Ivanov - Bowra 9 December 1946 33
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survival. 38 I am glad that you hav
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implies. 47 How hard it is, for ins
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Dear Professor Ivanov, 7 Bowra - Iv
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With all good wishes to your family
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compatriotes non-initiés. 64 Vos t
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Dear Professor Ivanov, 10 Bowra - I
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your book. 81 I have also written t
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His subsequent support for the publ
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Works by V.I. Ivanov 1 SELECT BIBLI
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Ivanov, Vyacheslav, Dionis i pradio
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Berlin and Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verl
Page 127 and 128:
Bowra, C.M., Early Greek Elegists,
Page 129 and 130:
London: Duckworth, 1974, 48-85. Aub
Page 131 and 132:
Vena 1998, ed. Sergei Averintsev an
Page 133 and 134:
Konovalov, S., ed., Vyacheslav I. I
Page 135 and 136:
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, Atalan
Page 137:
INDEX OF NAMES AND WORKS 137
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